When draining fluid from a building floor, for example in a shower, or a bathroom floor a circular drain is often provided in the building floor, which is then connected to a waste outlet to drain the water away.
However increasingly there is a desire for different shaped and look drains.
One solution for an in floor drain is to provide a drain structure and then waterproof the entire resulting cavity. A grate then is located in the resulting drain which is supported on legs off the bottom of the cavity. A disadvantage of this in addition to the full waterproofing needed, and the time taken to craft the channel in place, is the weight of the grate will cause the waterproofing to fail as the legs cut into the waterproofing.
A further disadvantage of existing systems is the requirement to provide differing heights between any mounting flange at the top of the drain to account for differing floor finish thicknesses. This is because only one height of covering is provided and the in floor drain must then be provided with the correct depth to place the top of the covering at the desired level, typically flush, with the surrounding floor surface. This results in more stock of drains that needs to be held to account for a variety of finishes, heights and installed lengths. This is a clear disadvantage as generally all combinations must be provided or kept in stock, with the resulting cost of product, storage and potentially wastage of unused product.
There is also an increasing desire to provide in floor drainage to contain water from spreading, for example water from a bathroom spilling past a door in a hallway, for example that may be carpeted. Such a spill may occur by normal use, or may occur due to a blockage, for example in a sink or bath. It will be understood that such containment may be desirable to prevent damage to the area outside, for example the hallway of the bathroom. There may also be a desire to prevent water damage to areas below for example in a multi-story apartment building or similar. A further desire is present to contain appliances where fluid leakage is a risk. For example to contain leakage from a dishwasher or washing machine, for example in a laundry, or kitchen or similar.
Further, existing solutions that use a premade channel require significant bracing not only around the aperture the channel is mounted in, but also underneath. This underneath bracing must be at a precise depth to correctly support the channel of the desired depth, which in turn is dependent on the floor height, eg tile thickness, chosen. This requires that a chosen tile or floor thickness once chosen, cannot then be changed as this will required the channel depth to be altered as well then as the supporting framing underneath. This mean there cannot be change in flooring specification without significant reworking. Further should, at a later date there be a desire to change the floor finish, eg from a 15 mm thick tile to a 10 mm thick tile, then either the user must suffer having a channel covering that is now 5 mm higher, or must also remove the existing channel and underneath framing and replace them both. Suffering a 5 mm difference, for example, may be acceptable when the channel is against a wall, but will be insufferable if mounted mid floor, as a user will continually catch the cover with their foot, footwear, or cleaning equipment. Additionally if the underneath framing is not reworked for the new height then there is significant risk of failure of the waterproof envelope resulting in highly costly water damage.
In this specification where reference has been made to patent specifications, other external documents, or other sources of information, this is generally for the purpose of providing a context for discussing the features of the invention. Unless specifically stated otherwise, reference to such external documents is not to be construed as an admission that such documents, or such sources of information, in any jurisdiction, are prior art, or form part of the common general knowledge in the art.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved drainage channel or to overcome the above shortcomings or address the above desiderata, or to at least provide the public with a useful choice.